MONDAY RECIPE POST - EASY TERIYAKI NOODLES WITH TOFU AND BROCCOLI - SERVES 4

Today's recipe came from The Vegan Atlas and you can see the original recipe at this link.  We both gave this a 10-out-of-10.  It was excellent!  It is always fun to visit their website, where I look forward to finding other recipes, and seeing photos. 

 This is a vegan meal but you can add a favorite protein.  My thanks to Nava Atlas who is its host.

Easy Teriyaki Noodles with Tofu and Broccoli

Serves 4

From preparation to tables approximately 35 minutes.

8 ounces udon noodles (or or you can use soba, spaghetti or linguine - we used Ramen Noodles)

14-ounce tub extra-firm tofu

1-1/2 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil, such as safflower

1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari

1 good-size broccoli crown, cut into small bite-size pieces

Several mini sweet peppers, sliced, or 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into short thin strips

1/2 cup grated carrot

1/3 cup bottled teriyaki marinade, or to taste, plus more for serving

2 teaspoons grated fresh or bottled ginger

Freshly ground pepper to taste

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

For garnish:

2 to 3 green onions, sliced

Sesame Seeds

Chopped toasted peanuts or cashews 

Sriracha

Cook the noodles according to package directions until al dente, then drain. 

Meanwhile, cut the tofu into 6 slabs crosswise and blot very well with clean tea towels or paper towels. Or, better yet, if you have a tofu press, press the tofu ahead of time. In either case, cut into dice.

Heat the oil and soy sauce in a wok or frying pan. Add the tofu and stir-fry over medium-high heat, stirring often, until golden on most sides, about 8 minutes.

Add the broccoli, sweet peppers, and carrot. Stir-fry for 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender-crisp.

Add the cooked noodles to the pan along with the teriyaki marinade, ginger, pepper, and sesame seeds. Stir-fry just until everything is well blended and heated through. Add more teriyaki marinade to taste, if you’d like.

Serve at once straight from the pan, passing around green onions, hot seasoning, and extra teriyaki sauce for individual servings.

This is now in our favorites folder.  As I said at the beginning, it was a 10 out of 10.

Instead of the oil we used avocado oil spray. 

The noodles we had in stock were packets of dried Ramen, and we used three of them.  These were the kind that had the seasoning packets.  We always throw away those packets, as we are usually working with a lot of other flavorings. 

Another favorite noodle of ours is Udon, and will look forward to putting that on the shopping list for next time.  I also wouldn't have any hesitation using Angel Hair Spaghetti if that's all we had in the pantry, or even cooked rice instead of noodles.

When preparing the tofu, after getting as much moisture out as possible, I cubed it and added a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch, mixed all this in a bowl until well coated and shook the excess cornstarch off before frying.  This makes it extra crispy and was a tip given to me years ago by an old friend originally from Shanghai.  I have since seen this technique in other Asian dishes over the years.   (My friend used cornstarch on cubed chicken also, mixing it together as I described for the tofu, but left it for half-an-hour which tenderized the chicken.)

  Gregg does not gravitate towards tofu (I added this snippet for other non-tofu eaters), but he said he was surprised how much he enjoyed it cooked this way and will look forward to more in other dishes we make.  Tofu absorbs the flavor of sauce ingredients quite nicely.  

You could go without Tofu entirely as there are plenty of other ingredients to make a delicious meal.

I used one large sweet red pepper and diced it.

We thought mushrooms would be a nice addition to this dish.

There was leftover raw cauliflower from another recipe.  It was added at the same time as the broccoli, cutting it into pieces of a similar size.

I added all the garnishing, including the Sriracha which gave it a spicy kick.  This is not necessary.  It is milder if you prefer without, and still very flavorful.  

We had leftovers for a total of six meals.   The flavors developed each time, very yummy!

If you prefer cutting and pasting into your search engine, here is the full address.

https://theveganatlas.com/easy-teriyaki-noodles-with-tofu-broccoli/

That's it!  If you have any questions and if you think I have missed anything out, please let me know in the comment section.